The Novosibirsk State University graduate started out in 1993 selling a variety of consumer goods to a hungry public. Later founded the Profit House investment firm and registered it in the remote Russian region of Kalmykia, then a domestic tax haven. In 2003 Profit House bought five Russian generic-drug plants and a drugstore chain from ICN Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. company founded by former Yugoslav prime minister Milan Panic. These assets grew to what is now known as Pharmstandard, the largest domestic drugmaker in Russia. Last spring it went public on the Moscow bourse; Roman Abramovich owns a stake.